Ed even has items (like the Rod of Seven Parts, only far lower-powered) whose powers grow as you collect and fit together its component pieces (each of which has a single power of its own, but each COMBINATION of which also "awakens" other powers, in addition to the piece-powers.Again, it's all about encouraging roleplaying.love,THO

Steven Schend wrote an article about items like this. The article was entitled "Series Magic" and appeared in Dragon 213. It was also in this article that we found out Elminster and Khelben both like pizza, but the latter doesn't care for frozen pizza.

Ed even has items (like the Rod of Seven Parts, only far lower-powered) whose powers grow as you collect and fit together its component pieces (each of which has a single power of its own, but each COMBINATION of which also "awakens" other powers, in addition to the piece-powers.Again, it's all about encouraging roleplaying.love,THO

Steven Schend wrote an article about items like this. The article was entitled "Series Magic" and appeared in Dragon 213. It was also in this article that we found out Elminster and Khelben both like pizza, but the latter doesn't care for frozen pizza.

I remember that article. Because I initially used it as a excuse to drop a pizza into the Realms for the PCs during one adventure session. They initially scoffed at the idea of such conventional fare in the Realms. Whereupon I quickly reminded them that Ed himself had noted pizza-like edibles in the Realms already:- "The taverns of Tantras serve the usual drinks and ‘hot buns' covered with melted cheese (some taverns putting sliced olives or slices of sausage on the cheese so they'll stick, to make their buns distinctive and popular), but little other food."

Until I don't receive the answer from Ed, i have some questions to you, THO, about your campaign...After reading many novels, I'm trying to play a more "realistic" game... I hate the idea of even after a tough fight, everybody getting up with healing surges (on 4e) or many cleric's healing powers (2nd and 3rd edition). How do you (and Ed) control it?What about some realistics moves like threatening someone's throat with a dagger?Do you have some special house-rule?

I've almost thought of playing Gurps on FR... But I think it would need too much balancing and development of the rules.

I've got tired of seeing "robo-cops characters" with thousands of magic itens and powerfull combos... Even my group taking a media of 1.5 encounters per session (what is very rare in Brazil) I would like to make it more like a novel than a Pure-Action PC game.

Ed even has items (like the Rod of Seven Parts, only far lower-powered) whose powers grow as you collect and fit together its component pieces (each of which has a single power of its own, but each COMBINATION of which also "awakens" other powers, in addition to the piece-powers.Again, it's all about encouraging roleplaying.love,THO

Steven Schend wrote an article about items like this. The article was entitled "Series Magic" and appeared in Dragon 213. It was also in this article that we found out Elminster and Khelben both like pizza, but the latter doesn't care for frozen pizza.

Arm of Valor detailed in Myth Drannor Boxed Set was one such "Set Item" created by Ed, I think. One PC in my group actually found two pieces, but in the end we found it to be far too powerful (and unpredictable) to our taste (and it drew the unwanted attention of certain organizations, as well). I can't recall how we lost those parts... but I suspect we just gave it away as a "contribution" (i.e. a payment for healing, resurrection, restoration, and identification of other magical items) to the clergy of Shaundakul found in the ruins?

Experimenting with magical items has always been fun... and items created by Ed (such as those +1 "glowdaggers") were far more interesting than 99% of the "core" magic items.

"What am I doing today? Ask me tomorrow - I can be sure of giving you the right answer then."-- Askarran of Selgaunt, Master Sage, speaking to a curious merchant, Year of the Helm

Unfortunately the published Arm of Valor is WAY overpowered, because all the side-effects/drawbacks he designed into it got edited out.Sigh.love,THO

Oh, we didn't even *need* to see any serious drawbacks... as "old skool" gamers (i.e. we believe that power usually comes with a price tag attached) we were just so paranoid about it ("Wow, this is so good it *HAS* to have some nasty drawbacks we don't yet know about, or otherwise we wouldn't have found it!"). And there were liches and beholders and whatnot trying to wrest it from us, so we thought it better to get rid of the artifact...

But it was a cool, flavorful item with sense of history... like so many of items created by Ed. Another favorite of mine is the magical sword 'Flame of the North' in Undermountain, which we almost didn't dare to pick up, because of so many cursed weapons our characters had carried out of there (one of my 2E characters, a ranger, actually ditched four *actually* magical swords in Undermountain and happily carried out two runed, glowing ones... *BOTH* of which were cursed -2 swords!). Ah, good times, good times...

"What am I doing today? Ask me tomorrow - I can be sure of giving you the right answer then."-- Askarran of Selgaunt, Master Sage, speaking to a curious merchant, Year of the Helm

Until I don't receive the answer from Ed, i have some questions to you, THO, about your campaign...After reading many novels, I'm trying to play a more "realistic" game... I hate the idea of even after a tough fight, everybody getting up with healing surges (on 4e) or many cleric's healing powers (2nd and 3rd edition). How do you (and Ed) control it?What about some realistics moves like threatening someone's throat with a dagger?Do you have some special house-rule?

I've almost thought of playing Gurps on FR... But I think it would need too much balancing and development of the rules.

Sorry for butting in here, but this is the sort of question that drives me crazy. It sounds like you don't want to play DnD. GURPS would be a superb choice, IMHO, I've always had a soft spot for it. It might take a bit of work to convert FR, but you would be happier in the long run with a system you have better control over.

If you wanted to do this from within the DnD system(s), you'd need to do quite a bit of work. For 4th edition, you'd need to rewrite the way healing surges work (or completely write them out of the system), but realize that doing so is going to completely change the nature of the game - you'd need to do almost as much work re-balancing the system as you would need to do to convert the Realms to GURPS. As for 3rd/2nd Edition clerics and healing magic, the same thing applies - you'd have to either bump up the level for every single healing spell (and drop off the more powerful ones like Heal and Resurrection/True Resurrection), or make the priest's deity more active in their spell choice (get rid of spontaneous healing, and have the god choose not to give clerics so many healing spells) - but again, this is going to completely change the balance of the game.

As for the knife at the throat, if the person has them immobilized you could just rule they can perform a coup de gras - that would definitely give a PC pause if an NPC had a knife at their throat, but it should work equally well for the PCs. You could also change the way hit points work, such as they get X amount at first level, where X = their constitution score, and only gain more hit points if their constitution changes upwards (loosing points if it goes down). This would also make the game more lethal, would make poisons and diseases far more powerful, and most combats would be over in a single round, and far more susceptible to bad luck (ie, if the dice roll the wrong way just once, you have a total party wipe on your hands).

But I have to be honest with you here, with these kinds of changes you're probably making the game unplayable. If you're really serious about a more realistic game, as I said, you'd be better off with a totally different system.

GURPS is probably the best system I know of for making magic far more limited (for both Mages and Clerics), and combat more deadly. It also makes controlling the power level of the game easier because there's no great leaps (like a level up), the game is entirely skill/points based. The side effect of this is it has no real classes, and thus characters can become a mix and max of different abilities... which probably only helps the feeling of realism in the game, and makes it easier to reflect novel characters in game stats.

quote:I've got tired of seeing "robo-cops characters" with thousands of magic itens and powerfull combos... Even my group taking a media of 1.5 encounters per session (what is very rare in Brazil) I would like to make it more like a novel than a Pure-Action PC game.

Limits, limits, limits. You are the DM, you control XP and other rewards (magic items). Also remember, what's good for the PC is good for the NPC. If you limit PC magic, by necessity you need to limit NPC magic as well to keep the game balanced.

But my pure honest opinion is that Dungeons and Dragons is a very poor system for a realistic game. Also, I wouldn't like playing in such a game - I play games to escape reality, not have reality shoved down my throat... You might want to talk this through with your players, one or two might feel as I do.

I'd add a rant about how much I hate novels not adhering to the system very well, but I think it would take all day and I've already stuck my nose in enough anyway.

Zandilar~amor vincit omnia~~audaces fortuna iuvat~

As the spell ends, you look up into the sky to see the sun blazing overhead like noon in a desert. Then something else in the sky catches your attention. Turning your gaze, you see a tawny furred kitten bounding across the sky towards the new sun. Her eyes glint a mischevious green as she pounces on it as if it were nothing but a colossal ball of golden yarn. With quick strokes of her paws, it is batted across the sky, back and forth. Then with a wink the kitten and the sun disappear, leaving the citizens of Elversult gazing up with amazed expressions that quickly turn into chortles and mirth.

The Sunlord left Elversult the same day in humilitation, and was never heard from again.

In the name of making your games more "grim and gritty," you might see if you can't scare up a copy of the (now-out-of-print) S&S d20 Game of Thrones system. It has things like being stunned by too much damage, suffering serious or mortal wounds regardless of hit points, etc., etc.

I found it to be pretty playable and while it is considerably deadlier than the basic d20 system, still fun.

Good points, Erik and Zandilar both.(Oh, and Knight of the Gate: you can prod - - or even poke, ahem - - me with your double entendre ANYtime.)As for the Arm of Valor, as I recall, the request Ed and all other designers received was for "gonzo artifacts: as blow-up-the-world as you want!" Ed wrote his up (also as requested) in the standard rules format for artifacts (which had sections for side effects and for malevolent effects/powers, both major and minor - - and it was these sections that were largely pruned away, for publication). I'm afraid I never had any more access to those than reading Ed's printout of his work when I was snooping, and of course Ed can't publish them now because it was work commissioned by TSR, paid for by them, and delivered to them: edited-out material remains their property, even if they choose never to reveal it to anyone. We'll see if Ed can recall (and give hints about) the drawbacks he built in to the Arm.love to all,THO

Oh, and Sage: to make those buns into pizza, you'd have to put them on the floor and tromp on them (hopefully with CLEAN boots). Ed was definitely talking about pizza-like dressing atop rounded buns - - but yes, in the same way your countrymen have gotten quite used to ANYTHING being available baked into a "meat" pie, patrons of those establishments Ed was describing do indeed enjoy "adorned buns" that, yep, taste like plump, rounded mini-pizzas. love,THOP.S. Erik, I'm loving DOWNSHADOW!

Markustay, you're "dead on" re. Ed and history; even if it never gets developed in our campaign for a particular item or person, place or group, he always makes us FEEL as if it's all there, waiting to be explored, if we only grab time and inclination.That's what makes Ed's Realms come so alive, when you play in his campaign.And (heh-heh) when it comes to singing swords, Ed's done the same to us. One sword that was like a haughty opera tenor who'd never shut up, and another who never stopped making smart comments, and talked - - and sang! - - like Jimmy Durante.The genius of Ed is: somehow he makes these seem REAL and FITTING in a serious fantasy context, not elements that devolve into slapstick humor at every appearance.love,THO

I will say that in several moments when I was writing--the one that comes to mind is what I believe is Ed's favorite scene (in chapter 16: involving a closet, entirely too many suspicious ladies, and a main character in very clear peril of the amorous variety), I asked myself WWTHOD?

If its got 'plump buns' () and no sauce, then it's usually called Focaccia bread.

--- Mark, who baked himself some nice 7-Grain bread a couple of hours ago.

And thanks for the response THO; you can just tell when Ed writes about somthing that he has so much more he'd like to say, given an infinite amount of time and page-counts. If there is anything that is truly the 'Realms Flavor', that would be it - that no matter how deep you dig, there's alway another layer.

"I have never in my life learned anything from any man who agreed with me" --- Dudley Field Malone

Heh... talk about singing swords reminds me of a magic item me and a friend designed for his 2E druid. Since there wasn't much that could benefit a druid, we came up with a figurine of wondrous power. It was a squirrel that gave him some AC bonus and such, enough that he wouldn't get killed by a kobold with a pointy stick.

Our DM took that and decided that it was intelligent. And spoke with a french accent. And called the druid 'an idiot' a lot while trying to get a peek at my "then-girlfriend-now-ex-wife's" bard naked.

I actually DO know everything. I just have a very poor index of my knowledge.

Oh, and Sage: to make those buns into pizza, you'd have to put them on the floor and tromp on them (hopefully with CLEAN boots). Ed was definitely talking about pizza-like dressing atop rounded buns - - but yes, in the same way your countrymen have gotten quite used to ANYTHING being available baked into a "meat" pie, patrons of those establishments Ed was describing do indeed enjoy "adorned buns" that, yep, taste like plump, rounded mini-pizzas. love,THOP.S. Erik, I'm loving DOWNSHADOW!

My thanks to you, Lady.

And I'll happily remain mute on the issue of unusual contents in Australian "meat" pies. There are just some things we're not supposed to know about. Hehe...

-- Oh, and just a further note:- Your using works like "bun" and "plump" brought certain images to my mind. You look great, BTW!

THO, thank you for your (as always) timely, concise, and comprehensive response. The more I DM, the more I strive to re-create the mood around that original game-table. And am I the only one who went back to re-read THO discussing 'adorned buns'? And making use of the adjectives 'plump' and 'rounded'? Because, if so, either A)I've finally achieved the 'dirty old man-ness' for which I've so long sought, or B)my fellow scribes just aren't as on the ball as usual.

How can life be so bountiful, providing such sublime rewards for mediocrity? -Umberto Ecco

No, Knight of the Gate, you're not the only one who noticed these words. However, this simply shows your amatureness. I, personally, was concentrating on the 'Rod of Seven Parts'. Heh heh.

EDIT: Suddenly remembered a question I had, brought on by recent events:In the Realms, are there cultures that hold with 'Spring Cleaning'? Is there such a concept at all, that once a year, you clean your entire house?

"Shall mortal man be more just than God? shall a man be more pure than his maker?Behold, he put no trust in his servants; and his angels he charged with folly.How much less them that dwell in houses of clay, whose foundation in the dust, are crushed before the moth?" - Eliphaz the Temanite, Job IV, 17-19.

"Yea, though he live a thousand years twice, yet hath he seen no good: do not all go to one place?" - Ecclesiastes VI, 6.